Classroom shut by mystery stink

A CLASSROOM at Gillotts School in Henley is closed because it is unusable.

The room has been isolated because it has an acrid smell — a mix of damp and chemicals — which clogs pupils’ throats and clings to teachers’ hair and clothes after they have gone home.

Headteacher Catharine Darnton has blamed government cuts in funding, saying she is having to spend money meant for children’s education on maintenance of the school’s crumbling buildings.

She also revealed that she considered closing the secondary school at one point during winter because it was so cold and dark.

The classroom has been shut since January 2017 because of a foul smell caused by a leak in its ageing pipework. This was recently repaired at a cost of £30,000, which depleted the school’s maintenance budget for the year, but it still faces a bill of £11,000 to make the classroom usable again.

The school will need to carry out air tests and underground investigations but these may not solve the problem and the room may have to be demolished and rebuilt.

Furthermore, the school expects to spend at least £55,000 repairing blocked drains which are at risk of backing up and flooding outdoor areas with raw sewage.

It has already had the pipes cleaned out three times at a cost of £4,500 and has paid another £32,000 to replace a stretch of drainage. Lining other drains will cost at least another £18,000.

Ms Darnton says this could have been avoided if the school had been able to afford to line its drains, as it was advised to do, several years earlier.

She is urging the Government to provide more capital investment.

The school, which became an academy in 2012, was one of five that were due to be rebuilt under the Labour government but this fell through when Michael Gove, then the Conservative education minister, cancelled the Building Schools for the Future programme in 2010.

Its capital budget used to be about £80,000 a year but this was cut to £18,000 in 2011 and has remained at that level while its £4,700 in funding per pupil has not increased since 2012.

Ms Darnton told the Observer she was having to work 70 hours a week because of the reduced funding.

She said: “I can’t go on doing that. I’m desperate for my capital funding to be reinstated. The government mantra is that there has never been more money for education.

“It doesn’t matter to me how much money there is across the system. What I see is that I’ve had real-terms cuts to my funding every year.

“By not maintaining our schools, we are storing up problems and the cost is higher when we have to do it in an emergency.”

The problems with the pipework, which was part of a 40-year-old heating system, first emerged in January 2013.

A leak was causing water to pool in the cellar of the original Victorian house, which runs beneath the disused classroom.

The school closed for a day while the heating to three surrounding blocks was shut off and replaced with electric heaters, which put a strain on the power supply and knocked out lights and sockets in about a third of classrooms for an afternoon.

She received funding from the Department for Education to patch the leak but it soon became clear that the whole heating system was failing.

The department paid for some repairs but wouldn’t fund a more permanent repair to the original leak.

The school appealed but was turned down so it shut the classroom because the smell of damp and chemicals had become unbearable.

Ms Darnton said: “That classroom is shut and unusable because of the smell and I could really do with that classroom.”

The school’s governors said these problems shouldn’t overshadow the school’s successes.

For the past six years, it has been among the top 25 per cent in Britain for pupil progress and it will be creating 20 extra year 7 places in September following a record number of applications.

It was described as a “joyful place” following an Ofsted inspection last year in which it retained its “good” rating.

The governors said: “We have an inspirational site and have taken opportunities to improve the visual appearance of our buildings. For example, we have used wood from trees felled to clad two of our blocks. The school has a strong and stable staff and a happy and vibrant student population.”

Henley MP John Howell said: “We’re putting more money into schools than ever but now is a good time for Ms Darnton to make her case as the Government’s spending review is about to take place. This will set the amount that’s going to be spent over the next five years.

“I understand why she is lobbying and I, too, have been lobbying for schools in this constituency with some success in the areas of teachers’ pensions, pay and the capital investment grant.

“I feel a similar level of urgency but don’t believe this is a situation where we are not being listened to. Nobody, myself included, likes austerity but it was necessary to overcome the mess that Labour made of the economy.

“I am glad that Ms Darnton has raised this issue as it gives me more scope to take it up with ministers.”

In 2008, Ms Darnton warned the school was facing “catastrophic failure” because of the state of its Sixties buildings and infrastructure.

She and the governors proposed a £26 million rebuild, saying there was “nothing worth preserving” and continuous repairs were a waste of money.

The Department for Education says it has allocated £6 billion in capital funding to maintain or improve school buildings since 2015, including an additional £400 million this academic year.

It says it has rebuilt or refurbished more than 500 schools through its Priority Schools Building Programme, which has reduced costs while carrying out works more quickly than before.

It says it is reviewing the condition of state schools across England to decide where to target funding.